Hank Stuever's TV Preview of National Geographic's 'Alaska State Troopers'

They're a year late, but here are those Alaska state troopers we all were once so fascinated by, when Sarah Palin was running for vice president while grappling with some unpleasant business having to do with her ex-brother-in-law.

"Alaska State Troopers" is a ride-along series debuting Wednesday on the National Geographic Channel, and while it has nothing to do with trooper Mike Wooten's kerfuffles with the Palin family, it does purport to show us how 400 troopers manage all the wild unpredictability of what is described, over and over, as a dangerous sprawl of the world's most beautiful potential crime scene. Mostly this involves arresting drunks at some dismal springtime beer bust called Arctic Man and responding to reports of a dead moose in a lake.

I defy you to remain interested in Alaska's state troopers after watching "Alaska State Troopers." I say that as someone with an unhealthy affinity for watching not only "Cops" but "Speeders," "Parking Wars" and a host of other reality shows that show cops at work. I will always watch a police officer throw an uncooperative subject to the ground and slap on the cuffs, and I always hate myself for it later.

To gloss over its lack of action, "Alaska State Troopers" takes the path of a melodramatic soundtrack matched with a gravelly voiced narrator, who promises nail-biting stuff ahead, which the good-'n'-drunk people of Alaska never deliver. It makes "Cops" look like something meticulously filmed by Martin Scorsese. Nearly everyone besides the troopers has his face pixilated, which means either someone forgot the clipboard with the legal releases, or, unlike the lower 48, the people in Alaska don't want to get on TV.

Near the show's end, there's big excitement when a trooper pulls over a suspected drunk driver and he pulls out a gun and starts firing. Only, no, wait -- it's a training exercise. At that point, Nat Geo producers should've thanked the troopers for their time, packed up their crew, and headed elsewhere.

At the Arctic Man festival, the troopers are miserable and the smell of exhaust and vomit are in the air. Somewhere an Alaska tourism official is cringing, as well he should be, since "Alaska State Troopers" is one of the few things I've ever watched about the 49th state that made me not want to visit it.

When an Arctic Man reveler catapults off his snow machine and breaks his back, we wait and wait (and wait) for a medical helicopter to fly the three hours from Anchorage to retrieve him. The music gets more intense. The medics arrive and take him away. Trooper Brent Johnson tells the camera that the crash victim "may not do any more riding this year, but hopefully next year, he'll be out again."

Who hopes that?

Alaska State Troopers (one hour) premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel.